Napoleon Iii Quotes

I’ve known this a long time, because when Napoleon III created the bagnes and was asked: “But who will guard these bandits?” he answered: “Worse bandits.

Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets--as vast and indestructible as nature itself. All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower. Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her--and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.

I’ve known this a long time, because when Napoleon III created the bagnes and was asked: “But who will guard these bandits?” he answered: “Worse bandits.” Later on, I was able to confirm the fact that the founding father of the bagnes had not been lying.

If the empire were to collapse, I should personally feel extremely sad. I absolutely do not believe that the personal rule of Napoleon III has been corrupting and oppressive for France-but quite the contrary, it is demonstrably necessary, conciliatory, progressive, and generally intelligent and democratic in the best sense of the word.

the Catholic Church not only didn’t oppose abortion but actually regulated it until the mid-nineteenth century. It was made a mortal sin mostly for population reasons.8 Napoleon III wanted more soldiers, and Pope Pius IX wanted all the teaching positions in the French schools—plus the doctrine of papal infallibility—so they traded. Also,

But Paris, Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets—as vast and indestructible as nature itself. All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower. Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her—and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.

In the 1860s, Emperor Napoleon III of France commissioned aluminium cutlery to be laid out for his most distinguished guests. Less important visitors had to make do with the gold knives and forks.

The seal of Reason, made impregnable: _ The seal of Truth, immeasurably splendid: The seal of Brotherhood, man's miracle: _ The seal of Peace, and Wisdom heaven-descended: The seal of Bitterness, cast down to Hell: _ The seal of Love, secure, not-to-be-rended: The seventh seal, Equality: that, broken, God sets His thunder and earthquake for a token.

But Paris, Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets—as vast and indestructible as nature itself.

When Prince Napoleon, the cousin of Napoleon Bonaparte III, visited Washington in early August, Mary organized an elaborate dinner party. She found the task of entertaining much simpler than it had been in Springfield days. “We only have to give our orders for the dinner, and dress in proper season,” she wrote her friend Hannah Shearer. Having learned French when she was young, she conversed easily with the prince. It was a “beautiful dinner,” Lizzie Grimsley recalled, “beautifully served, gay conversation in which the French tongue predominated.” Two days later, her interest in French literature apparently renewed, Mary requested Volume 9 of the Oeuvres de Victor Hugo from the Library of Congress.

Where the French built their own boats and bridges, the Austrians complained that none were to be found.

Chemists discovered aluminium only in the 1820s, but separating the metal from its ore was extremely difficult and costly. For decades, aluminium was much more expensive than gold. In the 1860s, Emperor Napoleon III of France commissioned aluminium cutlery to be laid out for his most distinguished guests. Less important visitors had to make do with the gold knives and forks.

For decades, aluminum was much more expensive than gold. In the 1860s, Emperor Napoleon III commissioned aluminum cutlery to be laid out for his most distinguished guests. Less important visitors had to make do with the gold knives and forks .... (He) would be surprised to learn that his subject’s descendants use cheap aluminum foil to wrap their sandwiches and put away their leftovers.

Lee believed in the value of emulation, of learning from great men. As a soldier, he was a student of Napoleon. As an American, his hero was George Washington. And if we find Lee’s perfection daunting, we should remember that Lee himself attempted—as indeed every sincere Christian attempts—‘the imitation of Christ.

Napoleon respected Islam, regarding the Koran as ‘not just religious; it is civil and political. The Bible only preaches morals.’52 He was also impressed by the way that the Muslims ‘tore more souls away from false gods, toppled more idols, pulled down more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Christ had in fifteen centuries’.53* He had no objection to polygamy, saying that Egyptian men were gourmands en amour, and, when permitted, ‘will prefer having wives of various colours’.54† His flattery of the ulama (clergy), his discussions of the Koran, and his holding out the possibility of his conversion to Islam – as well as his attempts to impress the sheikhs with French science – were all intended to establish a collaborationist body of Egyptians, with mixed results. As it turned out, no amount of complying with Islamic ceremonies, salutations and usages prevented Selim III from declaring jihad against the French in Egypt, meaning that any attacks upon them were thenceforth blessed.

Let us not continually seek little passions in great souls. The success of superior men — and it is a consoling thought — is due rather to the loftiness of their sentiments, than to the speculations of selfishness and cunning; this success depends much more on their skill in taking advantage of circumstances, than on that presumption, blind enough to believe itself capable of creating events, which are in the hands of God alone. Certainly, Caesar had faith in his destiny, and confidence in his genius; but faith is an instinct, not a calculation, and genius foresees the future without understanding its mysterious progress.

III. Buddhism The Man Who Woke Up Buddhism begins with a man. In his later years, when India was afire with his message and kings themselves were bowing before him, people came to him even as they were to come to Jesus asking what he was.1 How many people have provoked this question—not “Who are you?” with respect to name, origin, or ancestry, but “What are you? What order of being do you belong to? What species do you represent?” Not Caesar, certainly. Not Napoleon, or even Socrates. Only two: Jesus and Buddha. When the people carried their puzzlement to the Buddha himself, the answer he gave provided an identity for his entire message. “Are you a god?” they asked. “No.” “An angel?” “No.” “A saint?” “No.” “Then what are you?” Buddha answered, “I am awake.” His answer became his title, for this is what Buddha means. The Sanskrit root budh denotes both to wake up and to know. Buddha, then, means the “Enlightened One,” or the “Awakened One.” While the rest of the world was wrapped in the womb of sleep, dreaming a dream known as the waking state of human life, one of their number roused himself. Buddhism begins with a man who shook off the daze, the doze, the dream-like vagaries of ordinary awareness. It begins with a man who woke up. His

Admiral Nelson won the great Battle of Trafalgar against the French during the Napoleonic Wars. The Viscount of Camperdown, who also won many battles during that period, was one of the admirals under Nelson. The Viscount of Canperdown's family crest had a ship with full sails on it and with two little Latin words: Disce pai—"Lean to suffer." That is precisely what Peter and Paul and Job and Moses and Jesus would say to you and me as believers in the fallen world. "Learn to suffer.

She found in him the peace she so desperately sought but never really found in herself.

We turn right along and walk along the side of the Parade to look at a long-barrelled cannon about 30 yards away. Known as ‘the Turkish gun’, it was made in 1524, captured during the Egyptian campaign against Napoleon, and installed here in 1801. It is a splendid piece of artillery but achieved notoriety when it nearly became the largest assassination weapon in the world. A couple of years after the gun had been placed here, a man with the appropriate name of Captain Despard formed a conspiracy to assassinate George III while he was reviewing troops here. The cannon, loaded to its full capacity with grapeshot, was to let fly at the Royal coach as it trundled across the parade ground. The conspiracy was discovered in time, which was just as well because it would have blown the coach into a thousand pieces. Have a close look at it and note, on the carriage, the sly crocodile sneaking up on Britannia on the banks of the Nile.

Two days later, on June 9, 1815, the Allies signed the Treaty of Vienna. Under Article I they reaffirmed their intention of forcing Napoleon from the throne, and under Article III they agreed that they would not lay down their arms until this was achieved.54

As there are prominent points of convergence between Nietzsche’s Aristocratic Radicalism and the political system of Napoleon I, so there are prominent points of convergence between Nietzsche’s Aristocratic Radicalism and the political system of Napoleon III. This should be obvious because the regime of Napoleon III, both in terms of its political administration and organization, emulated the regime of Napoleon I and established itself upon "Napoleonic ideas". The general Napoleonic ideas that Napoleon III identifies in his apologetic manifesto, Napoleonic Ideas, published in 1839 and that Nietzsche would be in accord with are: the privileging of executive power (autocracy); the hierarchical reorganization of the state (aristocracy); the glorification of the Roman Empire and Julius Caesar; the support for the formation of a European union; an anti-English position; and the support of Jewish assimilation.

The [Crimean War] victory was bitter sweet for the Ottomans, their weak Islamic realm saved by Christian soldiers. To show his gratitude and keep the West at bay, Sultan Abdulmecid was forced, in measures known as Tanzimat--reform--to centralize his administration, decree absolute equality for all minorities regardless of religion, and allow the Europeans all manner of once-inconceivable liberties. He presented St. Anne's, the Crusader church that had become Saladin's madrassa, to Napoleon III. In March 1855, the Duke of Brabant, the future King Leopold II of Belgium, exploiter of the Congo, was the first European allowed to visit the Temple Mount: its guards--club-wielding Sudanese from Darfur--had to be locked in their quarters for fear they would attack the infidel. In June, Archduke Maximilian, the heir to the Habsburg empire--and ill-fated future Emperor of Mexico--arrived with the officers of his flagship. The Europeans started to build hulking imperial-style Christian edifices in a Jerusalem building boom. Ottoman statesmen were unsettled and there would be a violent Muslim backlash, but, after the Crimean War, the West had invested too much to leave Jerusalem alone.

Once again, just as the Napoleonic wars of 1803-1815 had given a definitive boost to the gradual formation of Italy and Germany, the defeat of Napoleon III at Calm gave a final form to the powerful and unified German State with Berlin as capital.

On our return the Emperor, in spite of the storm, ordered his breakfast in the tent, and kept me with him. The rain did not penetrate; the only inconvenience was a considerable degree of damp; but the squalls of wind and rain whirled round us, and vented themselves far before us, towards the bottom of the valley; the spectacle was not destitute of beauty.

In 1870, the throne was offered to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Had the Prince rejected the offer at once, there might have been no Franco-Prussian war, and Napoleon III might have ended his days still on the throne. Alas, he accepted. France was appalled, how possibly could she accept being the sausage the middle of a German sandwich.

Napoleon took action. In May he confirmed the legality of slavery in those colonies, Martinique and Réunion, where it had never been abolished. He also imposed restrictions on people of color in metropolitan France. Then, in quick succession, he authorized the resumption of the slave trade in the colonies and the restoration of slavery in Guadeloupe and Guiana.

In his book Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620–1914, John R. McNeill estimates that Napoleon dispatched sixty-five thousand troops in successive waves to suppress the revolt in Saint-Domingue. Of these, fifty thousand to fifty-five thousand died, with thirty-five thousand to forty-five thousand of those deaths caused by yellow fever. Thus in the late summer of 1802 Leclerc reported that he had under his command only ten thousand men, of whom eight thousand were convalescing in hospital, leaving only two thousand fit for active duty. Two-thirds of the staff officers had also succumbed.

This differential immunity between those of European and African descent powerfully affected the history of Saint-Domingue. It dictated the ongoing need to import plantation laborers from Africa rather than relying on impoverished Europeans or Native Americans; it inflamed the social tensions that led to revolt; and it drove the violent yellow fever epidemics that periodically swept the European populations of the Caribbean. As we will see, the arrival of an armada of European troops also played an outsized role in unleashing the most deadly epidemic of yellow fever in the history of the Americas in 1802. This epidemic produced a suite of momentous consequences, including the defeat of Napoleon’s aspirations in the Americas.

Compounding his problems, Napoleon had fallen victim to sycophantic adulation and now believed that his every impulsive thought was the prompting of his genius. Accepting the myth of his own invincibility, he disdained advice, reduced his chief of staff—the hapless General Louis-Alexandre Berthier—to a bearer of orders from above, and rarely consulted his marshals. Crossing into Russian territory, therefore, the Grande Armée possessed no coherent strategy, and no one except Napoleon himself understood the goals of the expedition.

Napoleon recognized that the game was up in the Americas and turned his attention to other matters. He is alleged to have muttered, “Damn sugar! Damn coffee! Damn colonies!”15 Thus abandoned by France, Rochambeau found that few blacks and mulattoes were willing to assist in his race war.

Napoleon’s reliance on cannons presupposed tens of thousands of horses to pull them. The horses, however, were no better provisioned than the men, and already on the outward journey they began to sicken and die by the thousands. As a result, the French were progressively compelled to abandon their artillery and transform their cavalry into infantry.

...fascism was a latecomer among political movements. It was simply inconceivable before a number of basic preconditions had been put in place. One necessary precondition was mass politics. As a mass movement directed against the Left, fascism could not really exist before the citizenry had become involved in politics. Some of the first switches on the tracks leading to fascism were thrown with the first enduring European experiments with manhood suffrage following the revolutions of 1848. Up to that time, both conservatives and liberals had generally tried to limit the electorate to the wealthy and the educated—“responsible” citizens, capable of choosing among issues of broad principle. After the revolutions of 1848, while most conservatives and cautious liberals were trying to restore limits to the right to vote, a few bold and innovative conservative politicians chose instead to gamble on accepting a mass electorate and trying to manage it. The adventurer Louis Napoleon was elected president of the Second French Republic in December 1848 by manhood suffrage, using simple imagery and what is called today “name recognition” (his uncle was the world-shaking Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte). Confronted with a liberal (in the nineteenth century meaning of the term) legislature that tried in 1850 to disenfranchise poor and itinerant citizens, President Louis Napoleon boldly championed manhood suffrage. Even after he had made himself Emperor Napoleon III in a military coup d’état in December 1851, he let all male citizens vote for a phantom parliament. Against the liberals’ preference for a restricted, educated electorate, the emperor pioneered the skillful use of simple slogans and symbols to appeal to the poor and little educated.

MY CODE OF ETHICS I. I believe in the Golden Rule as the basis of all human conduct; therefore, I will never do to another person that which I would not be willing for that person to do to me if our positions were reversed. II. I will be honest, even to the slightest detail, in all my transactions with others, not alone because of my desire to be fair with them, but because of my desire to impress the idea of honesty on my own subconscious mind, thereby weaving this essential quality into my own character. III. I will forgive those who are unjust toward me, with no thought as to whether they deserve it or not, because I understand the law through which forgiveness of others strengthens my own character and wipes out the effects of my own transgressions, in my subconscious mind. IV. I will be just, generous and fair with others always, even though I know that these acts will go unnoticed and unrecorded, in the ordinary terms of reward, because I understand and intend to apply the law through the aid of which one's own character is but the sum total of one's own acts and deeds. V. Whatever time I may have to devote to the discovery and exposure of the weaknesses and faults of others I will devote, more profitably, to the discovery and correction of my own. VI. I will slander no person, no matter how much I may believe another person may deserve it, because I wish to plant no destructive suggestions in my own sub-conscious mind. VII. I recognize the power of Thought as being an inlet leading into my brain from the universal ocean of life; therefore, I will set no destructive thoughts afloat upon that ocean lest they pollute the minds of others. VIII. I will conquer the common human tendency toward hatred, and envy, and selfishness, and jealousy, and malice, and pessimism, and doubt, and fear; for I believe these to be the seed from which the world harvests most of its troubles. IX. When my mind is not occupied with thoughts that tend toward the attainment of my definite chief aim in life, I will voluntarily keep it filled with thoughts of courage, and self-confidence, and good- will toward others, and faith, and kindness, and loyalty, and love for truth, and justice, for I believe these to be the seed from which the world reaps its harvest of progressive growth. X. I understand that a mere passive belief in the soundness of the Golden Rule philosophy is of no value whatsoever, either to myself or to others; there- 32- fore, I will actively put into operation this universal rule for good in all my transactions with others. XI. I understand the law through the operation of which my own character is developed from my own acts and thoughts; therefore, I will guard with care all that goes into its development. XII. Realizing that enduring happiness comes only through helping others find it; that no act of kindness is without its reward, even though it may never be directly repaid, I will do my best to assist others when and where the opportunity appears.

Un Bonaparte jamás podía retroceder ante una guerra reclamada por su propio pueblo. Napoleon III

The July Monarchy was the start of France’s Steam Age, a period when steam technology, much of it imported from England, began to transform perceptions of space and time (the steamboat and the railroad), material culture (the powerloom for weaving cloth), and the circulation of words and images (the mechanized printing press). The number of steam engines in France rose from six hundred in 1830 to five thousand in 1847, and contemporaries were powerfully aware of the changes they portended. Indeed, the July Monarchy has never received sufficient acknowledgment for setting the stage for the major economic boom of the 1850s and 1860s, for which the Emperor Napoleon III was happy to take credit. Nevertheless, in two fundamental ways, France before 1848 was more like it had been at the end of the eighteenth century than like it would be by the beginning of the twentieth.

For decades, aluminium was much more expensive than gold. In the 1860s, Emperor Napoleon III of France commissioned aluminium cutlery to be laid out for his most distinguished guests. Less important visitors had to make do with the gold knives and forks.

The statue at Alesia, over 20 feet tall, was erected in 1865 at the commission of Napoleon III, and the face appears to be modelled on his own. It is inscribed with Caesar's 'quotation' from Vercingetorix, slightly adapted – 'Gaul united, Forming a single nation, Inspired by a shared spirit, Can defy the world'. In 1870 Napoleon III led France to defeat by Germany.

After assembling the largest military force ever created, Napoleon Bonaparte launched the decisive campaign of his career—the invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. In Russia as in Haiti, however, epidemic diseases destroyed his men and defeated his ambitions. Dysentery and typhus determined the course of war far more than strategic skill and force of arms.

As he moved farther and farther east, the emperor did not consider the difficulties that would arise in lands where roads were few, the population was thinly settled and impoverished, and resources were scarce. Napoleon, in other words, ignored the natural and social environments surrounding his army, and the medical consequences that could follow.

Finally, on October 15 cold weather arrived and the first snow fell three inches deep. Stunned into sudden appreciation of his exposed position, Napoleon decided to depart. On October 18, the appointed day, the French army, reduced to one hundred thousand men, set off.

But venereal diseases, hepatitis, and diarrhea continued to ravage the French. In addition, recent evidence demonstrates that trench fever, a debilitating but rarely fatal disease borne by the same body lice that transmit typhus, also afflicted Napoleon’s troops. Thus multiple comorbidities compounded the misery of the retreating troops and compromised their resistance. Furthermore, typhus is well known to be especially lethal when it runs its course in populations that are undernourished. The nineteenth-century epidemiologist Rudolf Virchow reminds us that the disease fully earned yet another of its many nicknames—“famine fever.” The classic case is Ireland, where famine and typhus accompanied one another in successive crises between the end of the eighteenth century and the potato famine of 1846–1848.

Since dysuria is a symptom frequently associated with sexually transmitted diseases, it is possible that he suffered from tertiary syphilis. This hypothesis gains plausibility from the irrational quality of his decision-making, both in launching the adventure and then in leading it to destruction. His marshals noted in dismay that the emperor no longer seemed in full command of his faculties. Members of Napoleon’s general staff reported a new hesitation and inability to focus in the emperor that left him irresolute at moments of crisis. Whatever the diagnosis, Napoleon appeared to his staff to be mentally impaired.

march toward Italian unification. The two stories were intertwined, for Napoleon III had for several years used French troops to defend the pope, who was determined to retain temporal power in Rome, the last remaining vestige of the once-mighty Papal States.

Not seeing that many visitors to the island, my cab driver Harry was only too happy to tell me the story of Napoleon on Saint Helena as he saw it. The way he told me the story I could have believed that it took place just days ago instead of over two hundred years prior. Napoleon had arrived on the island as a prisoner, on October 17, 1815 and lived there until his death resulting from stomach cancer on May 5, 1821. During this time he enjoyed the company of a young teenage girl named ,. Many years later, Napoleon III the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, rewarded Betsy with 500 hectares of land with vineyards in Algeria for the attention and comfort she provided his uncle.

most prized of all, her secretaire, a Napoleon III desk, full of nooks and crannies and pigeonholes,

After 1798, Jenner devoted the rest of his life to the smallpox vaccination crusade. In the process he rapidly made influential converts who established vaccination as a major instrument of public health—Pope Pius VII at Rome, Luigi Sacco in Italy, Napoleon in France, and Thomas Jefferson in the United States. Unlike inoculation, which used the smallpox virus, vaccination had a low risk of serious complications for the individual and posed no risk to the community because it involved cowpox rather than smallpox. It did, however, pose problems that made the campaign against smallpox a difficult and protracted one. It was feared that Jenner’s initial technique of arm-to-arm vaccination of live virus could increase the danger of spreading other diseases, especially syphilis. In addition, Jenner made it a dogmatic article of faith that the immunity derived from vaccination was lifelong, steadfastly refusing to consider conflicting data. In fact, the immunity provided by vaccination proved to be of limited duration. The irrefutable evidence of disease among patients who had previously been vaccinated went a long way toward discrediting the procedure and promoting skepticism. (It has subsequently been demonstrated that smallpox immunity following vaccination lasts up to twenty years and that revaccination is required in order to guarantee lifelong protection.)